Topical Tropes

These are what we call the 'YMMV items.' Things that some people find in this work. We call them 'your mileage might vary' because not everyone sees these things in the same way. This starts discussions in the trope lists, a thing we don't want. Please use the discussion page if you'd like to discuss any of these items.

Anvilicious: The "social issue" tales in Shock Suspense Stories and, occasionally, in the SF/fantasy titles. (It's noteworthy that the in-house term for these pieces was "preachies.") The more critically-acclaimed of these stories would fall under Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped.

Hilarious in Hindsight: In the movie "The Vault of Horror", Tom Baker plays a painter who, thanks to voodoo, can mutilate people in the same way their paintings are mutilated (jabbing out the eyes = being blinded, putting a red dot on their forhead = getting shot, ect.) By the end, thanks to a fallen can of lacquer thinner applied to his own self-portrait, Baker has his head run over. Why is this hilarious? Because if this was 1974, and not 1972 (when the film was released), Baker could've regenerated.

Nightmare Fuel: Boy, howdy. Too many examples to comfortably fit here. Yes, in the non-horror titles too. Why there isn't a page made for this, who knows?!

Nightmare Retardant: The creators didn't always get it quite right, and reuse of certain scenes by later artists has reduced the shock factor considerably when readers see the original.

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